


Intermediate

by nottonyharrison



Series: Clone Wars Prompts and One-Shots [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Body insecurity, Deepthroating, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Light Xeno, Post-Star Wars: A New Hope, Reunions, There wasn't supposed to be a chapter two of this but you all made me do it, filling in the blanks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-28 08:47:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30137001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nottonyharrison/pseuds/nottonyharrison
Summary: Like she once saw in the watery images floating through a dream, there is a path laid out in front of her. A dirty path, spotted with grasses and flowers, determined to peek through the abused duracrete. A path that splits, with courses that meander through a life well lived, or a life short lived. Or perhaps somewhere in between.Ahsoka and Rex reunite on Yavin IV after the events of A New Hope.
Relationships: CT-7567 | Rex/Ahsoka Tano
Series: Clone Wars Prompts and One-Shots [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2118354
Comments: 21
Kudos: 73





	1. Part 1

Like she once saw in the watery images floating through a dream, there is a path laid out in front of her. A dirty path, spotted with grasses and flowers, determined to peek through the abused duracrete. A path that splits, with courses that meander through a life well lived, or a life short lived. Or perhaps somewhere in between.

There’s no blood spotting the short path. No blaster burns, or bomb craters. And there’s no golden edge along the long path, merely a feeling creeping through the force that says no, Ahsoka. This path is not for you.

The in-between though, it’s almost comforting in its blandness, nothing but gray surface with no notable features other than a tiny black tooka kit, staring at her with an intensity that should be unsettling but instead offers comfort.

The in-between has a nice view of the sky, not hidden by trees or ships. It’s streaked with light, the last of the Death Star debris shooting through the atmosphere and burning up, until it's only spent dust and ash raining down on the planet.

The in-between is rich in the force, its soothing waves licking along her skin like a lover welcoming her home. It’s calm and gentle and _right_ in the same way Malachore had been darkness and rage and grief.

Ahsoka lets the current carry her. Along the duracrete, through metal, around twists and turns in a stone pyramid until she’s in front of a plain, unadorned door. The door is gray like all the others on the in-between. Nothing of note other than a warmth emanating from the quarters that envelops her like an embrace, but edged with a melancholy that digs under her fingernails and into her pores, until she’s itchy with an agonizing unease that makes her want to run. Perhaps to the path she knows will lead to a long life filled with maybe not joy, but at least clear purpose, devoid of the ambiguity and sorrow laid out before her through this door.

Her fingers trace down the comm panel, hesitating before pressing the call icon. She could leave right now. Just walk away, perhaps even to her inevitable but untimely death. Perhaps to something superficially good and righteous, but ultimately hollow.

So it’s like that, deep in an argument with both herself and the force, that Rex sees her again.

She doesn’t notice him for a while, the hiss of the door barely audible over the flow of blood through her veins, and the monologue running through her mind.

It’s a choked noise, half sob half breath followed by a long silence which vibrates in the heavy humidity of Yavin IV, that finally pulls her out of her detachment.

She drops her hand, but her eyes don’t leave the panel. The silence remains until the vibrations become an earthquake that rattles her brain, and something finally shakes loose.

“I um… didn’t want to just barge in,” she blurts out, glancing at him without meeting his eyes.

There’s that noise again, the choked sob, this time punctuated with the whine of someone so detached from their reality that they’re spiralling into something. Something. _Something._ This is something.

Ahsoka reaches out and slides her fingers down his forearm, tracing the thick muscle until trailing to his knuckles. His hand twitches, and she snatches her own arm back until it’s tucked against her chest.

“You can’t be here,” he finally says, and her heart feels like it’s dropped right out of her rib cage and buried itself into her stomach. She finally looks up, and it’s not anger or indifference that looks back at her, but a deep, desperate need that doesn’t just come from his expression, but from something obscured under all the layers of stoicism dressed up in snark.

She shakes her head. Ignores the projection, and addresses the statement. “I cleared it with the General, he’s given me quarters in the eastern--”

“No, I mean you’re not here.”

“Rex, what…” Ahsoka trails off as he turns and walks back through the door, closing it behind him. She stares at the metal in silence for longer than she’s proud of before banging hard. “Rex! Open the fucking door.”

“You’re not real, Ahsoka,” comes the loud reply.

It doesn’t make sense. This was the in-between. The path the force had led her down, promising her perhaps not the longest or the most conventionally happy life, but the one that would give her meaning. The path that led her here, to a man who she’d…

She pinches herself hard, just to check. It hurts.

“Ow.”

Silence.

She bangs again. Then again. And again, until someone walks past and glares at her, muttering something about having a hangover.

The celebration. She’d missed the whole thing, busy cleaning up her own messy shockwave that had been echoing through the galaxy for weeks now, a pointless quest that she still didn’t fully understand. She looks over at the trash chute. It’s almost overflowing with bottles, the disposable type that only come out on the most euphoric of occasions.

“Rex,” she calls out. “Rex are you wasted?”

“What? No!” There’s a scrape and a slide, and the door opens with the angry grind of century old technology. “That’s such a kriffing _you_ thing to ask,” he snaps, his face screwed up in that way he has when he’s indignant. “I’m not some fucking wet behind the ears normie looking to get blasted on company time like _some_ people I know.”

Ahsoka feels her heart finally crawl back out of her stomach and right back into her chest, where it fires up in annoyance. “I swear to the force, Rex, if you ever call me a kriffing normie again I will take your stupid helmet, pull it to bits, and shove it right up your ass where it belongs, because that’s where your head is most of the time.”

There’s a chuckle from down the corridor, and they both turn to a young pilot who’s slinking out of one of the bunkrooms. “Yeesh, get a room you two,” the pilot says, before trying to jam a bag of garbage into the chute and sauntering off toward the staging area.

Ahsoka frowns, and glances at Rex out of the corner of her eye, expecting to see her expression somewhat mirrored. It’s not. It’s back on that shellshocked default he seems to have adopted, the same stabbing emotion she’d felt earlier hard.

His eyes clear, and all of a sudden it’s like a ray shield has lifted.

“It’s really you,” he says. There’s nothing special about his tone. If anything it’s almost bland.

Ahsoka lifts her lip and flashes a fang before responding. “Of course it’s me, you twit, who in the nine karking hells did you think I was?”

“I um… I thought you were just… I’ve been having weird dreams and you’re… well you’re dead.”

 _You’re dead_ . Not _I thought you were dead_ , or _it’s been two years and I didn’t think you were coming back_ . No it’s _you’re dead._ Because he didn’t know. Nobody told him.

Nobody _told_ him.

The words echo in her mind until she’s saying them out loud. He reaches back, and rubs a huge tan hand over the back of his neck. “No, I guess not.”

Her eyes drift to his bicep, then down his torso finally taking in the plain black t-shirt that doesn’t leave much to the imagination, down to the tight gray shorts that cling to his thick thighs, and she remembers why she’s here, and is ashamed it took blatant objectification for the bell to finally ring. She can feel heat rising in her cheeks.

“You’re acting like I don’t come back from the dead on the regular, I don’t see why you’re so rattled,” she says, trying for humor to break the last of the barrier between them.

Rex runs his tongue over his lip and bites down. He rubs his palm over his face, and looks up at the ceiling for two, three, ten seconds, until Ahsoka realizes there’s a tear slipping down his cheek. She reaches out and swipes it away, stepping closer until their chests are touching and she’s wrapping her arms around that wide, warm chest and squeezing so tight she’s sure the force is helping her out. Eventually he returns the embrace, pressing his wet face into the dip between her montrals.

“I’m sorry,” she says, quiet against his chest. Quiet enough to hear the other words screaming in her mind, the words that she should have said but… can’t. It’s not the right time.

He says them though. Through wet lips that brush against the smooth skin of her forehead. So quiet she barely hears them, but he’s being so loud in the force, yelling at her with a cacophony of emotions until her head is swimming, and the only answer she has is a rough tug on his neck. Then the slide of her nose across his cheek, and a gasping press of lips to his, that sends sparks of electricity through every one of her nerve endings until her skin is prickling and her heart is back in her stomach.

And through the haze in her brain, and the fire in her stomach, a shimmer tickles at her, offering her three paths once again, and the in-between calls. Not the short path that would end in a messy implosion, or the long path that makes her want to scream in frustration, but the in-between. The in-between that has them stumbling back into the tiny room, tearing at fabric and armor until there’s a tooka-call from down the corridor. The in-between which has Rex’s beard prickling against her lips, and his warm hand sliding under her lekku until he’s gripping at the flesh of her neck, and she’s letting out a heavy sigh into his mouth.

The in-between that tells Ahsoka it’s okay to be greedy just this once.


	2. Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where they fuck. You happy now? You all made me do this.

Between the stumbles and pushes and tugs and semi-distant tooka calls and fuck the hot, _hot_ kisses that are slowly pulling him under a tidal wave of heat and lust, Rex has a moment of doubt that kind of skirts his consciousness to makes itself known.

But then as soon as it’s tugging on a string in his mind, he’s pushing it away again, along with Ahsoka’s armored belt, and ignoring the insidious whisper saying _you’re too old, you’re too broken, she doesn’t want you... she wants the you she remembers_.

He just wants this one moment, this one fixed point in time where he can indulge himself, let something he’s thought about for twenty years finally happen now that it’s not weird.

That’s not the right term though, right? Because this is definitely still weird. He’s a thirty-two year old senior citizen, and she’s recently back from the dead. Again.

The lips that are sliding across his cheek and past his beard are definitely not dead though. They’re soft and warm, and humming with a life force that tugs on a point in his chest that has him dragging them back to his own hungry, open mouth.

The feeling of cold metal as she slams him up against the wall has him wondering for a brief moment when he lost his shirt, then there’s a pang of self consciousness as he thinks about the scars. Thinks of the grey chest hair that he keeps as a reminder he no longer has to regularly spend two minutes in the laser pod. The thoughts fly out of his mind though, as she shoves his undershorts down and digs her fingers into his ass, and then there’s just a hint of her lips against his as she sucks in a gasping breath.

“Shit, Ahsoka I-”

She cuts him off. “Do you have any idea...” a kiss against the corner of his mouth, “...how long...” another, this time more of a bite, and on his chin, “...how _long_...” a suck on his lower lip, “...I’ve wanted...” a lick, “...to do this?”

Rex is almost embarrassed about the shaky sigh he lets out. Ahsoka’s hand is just so warm, her mouth so… ugh. He shoves his hands under her chestplate, and digs around until he finds the clips to release it, then rips his head away from hers as he tosses it aside to shove her dress up. She raises her arms and lets him strip it off. It gets caught on her vambraces before hitting the floor with a thwack, the heavy sewn-in armor doing its best to remind him they’re in the middle of a war. 

But they’re not though, are they? The space station is still raining down on the planet, but this is the first real moment of reprieve he can remember having since Seelos. A moment of peace that has him standing in his stark and utilitarian quarters, bare assed with his shorts still around his thighs, and a woman he’s been in love with for more than half his life trailing her lips down his chest until she’s…

Oh fuck until she’s wrapping them around his dick.

If he thought the sigh he let out earlier was rough, it has nothing on the groan and the echoing thud of his head hitting durasteel. He can feel heat rising, his whole body prickling with it. He pushes her off, shimmies his shorts off the rest of the way, and slides down until he’s sitting on her strong thighs and resting his head against hers.

“You can’t go doing that to an old fart who hasn’t done this for a… while,” he says, eyes still closed.

There’s a tickle of melancholic humor itching at the edges of his thoughts, and he knows what her response is going to be before she says it. They’ve done this dance a hundred times. _I’m older than you._

“I’m older than you.”

He snorts out a sudden laugh, and tucks a hand under one of her lekku, caressing the soft skin of her neck. “As you always have to remind me, _especially_ when you’re about to do something stupid.”

“Oh, and giving you the best blowjob of your life is something stupid?” she retorts.

Rex tilts his head to bring their mouths together again, and bites down on her lower lip. Just a gentle nip, enough to drag it away from her teeth a tiny bit. She whines in the back of her throat. A weirdly pitched trilling noise he’s only heard in the pornos that used to circulate in the barracks. Back when he was in the GAR. His dick twitches against his thigh, and he can’t help but rub himself against her leggings.

“That would be something very, very stupid.”

He kisses her again, his position over her legs giving him a decent height advantage for the first time in years. It’s back to the hot, messy kisses from before in the corridor. Kisses that make him feel like he’s drowning in something intangible, that he’s lost in that current filled with emotions he confronted a long time ago but still isn’t entirely ready to voice.

The floor’s making his knees ache. It’s stone, with even less give than the metal deck of a starship, and Rex pulls back for a moment. “I’m gonna have to suggest we move this to the rack, I don’t think my joints are gonna like it if we stay down here for much longer,” he says, before shuffling backwards. He’s suddenly self conscious, certain the harsh lighting of the room is showing up all his physical shortcomings. He reaches for his t-shirt.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Ahsoka asks.

Rex tugs the shirt over his head, and drops the shorts into his lap. “You um… This isn’t exactly the same body it was during the war.”

Ahsoka’s palm is warm against his cheek. He looks longingly at the control panel by the door, wishing he could use the force to turn down the lights. There’s the scrape of fabric as Ahsoka slides the underwear back to the floor, then a tickle at his sides as she pushes the t-shirt up until he’s forced to lift his arms.

“I don’t care what you look like, Rex. I care about you.” She turns his head. He lets her, finally meeting her gaze. “And this might seem trite, but you have no idea how beautiful you are. You’ve still got it.”

A wink, then a touch at the scar on his chin, a finger drifting down his neck. A palm over the blaster dent in his chest. He sucks in a breath.

“I wish I’d been there to protect you from this,” she whispers. “I wish I’d been there for so much.”

“Don’t…” he trails off, pushing away the memories of that year without her, the year before Mandalore.

“Yeah, killing the mood, right?” She chuckles, and rests her forehead against his.

“I think I already did that,” he replies, cringing. “Do you think we need to talk about this? I mean…” Kriff, he just wants to be able to finish a sentence.

There’s a pause as she waits for him to finish, then finally realizes he’s lost the words. Or never had them. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” he says, bluntly.

The insecurity is creeping in again. He feels so exposed, completely naked next to her half clothed state. He wants this, he does. He wants it _so much_.

Ahsoka stands, the movement sudden and jarring, and before Rex can ask what’s wrong, she’s shucking her boots and leggings, quickly followed by her vambraces, sleeves, and finally her underwear. She holds her arms out wide for a moment, and stares down at him. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been dreaming about you dragging your lips over every millimeter of me for twenty years, so either get on with it, or get out.” She flops her arms to her sides, and juts a hip out.

One of his knees locks up as Rex gets to his feet. He leans on the other leg, and draws himself to his full height. She’s a tiny bit taller than him now, thanks to the peak of her montrals. Their eyes are almost level, hers just a bit lower. He tries for a glare, but thinks he’s landed closer to insolence.

“This is my room,” he replies.

She smiles, and pushes him until the backs of his calves hit the rack, and he’s dropping down to the mattress. “Then I guess you’ve made your choice then.”

Rex flops his arm out and hits the lighting panel above the bed, and the room goes dark, lit only by the ambient glow of the kickplate lighting along the floor. Ahsoka straddles him, then flips him around until he’s lying on the rack staring up at her dark figure, the white of her lekku and face markings almost glowing in the gloom.

“You’ve really been thinking about me all this time?” he asks, his heart picking up speed at the self indulgent question.

“I have so many regrets, Rex, but the biggest one is letting you leave.”

A heavy sigh fills the room. His heavy sigh. He rubs his hand over his face, and glides the other up her thigh until it’s resting on her hip. Memories drift through his mind, this time instead of war and loss, of a brief time when it had been just the two of them on a backwater planet somewhere in the vicinity of Xo. Way off the map. Barely populated but covered in rich forest that was perfect for hiding out in.

Alone. Just the two of them. Trying to figure out who they were after everything went to hell. And then he just… left, thinking he was nothing more than a burden.

“I regret _leaving_ ,” he says. His tongue feels thick in his mouth, and he turns his head to look at the blank wall next to him. “Have you ever been in love, Ahsoka?”

She shifts, and there’s a wet slide against his leg that makes his dick twitch. “Yeah,” she replies, her voice rough. “With you.”

His heart picks up, and he sucks in a breath. “You think you can love me again?”

“You really think I ever stopped?”

…

Everything’s a bit of a blur after that, her lips and her skin and her hands everywhere at once. What feels like hours just pressed up against one another under the scratchy blanket, and stiff sheet that still smells of chlorine. They don’t talk about it any more, not the regrets or the years of pent up emotion, instead falling back into the familiar rhythm they’d had since the early days. Communication with a look, or a gesture, or a few words that got right to the point. _Yes, there. Oh, not quite. Shit, fuck oh._

That last one was him, when she’d ducked her head down far enough on his dick for her mouth to hit the skin of his crotch.

“Oh fuck I’m gonna…” There’s some kind of determined mischief in her eyes, a look he used to be so familiar with. A look that hadn’t changed. He chokes out a groan as her throat contracts, and then he’s gone, stomach spasming and cock jerking against her lips and tongue.

He’s still watching her, eyes at half mast, as she pulls off. One last splash of jizz hits the corner of her mouth, and she slides her index finger across it and pushes it between her lips, then swallows.

There’s plenty of words he could have said in that moment. Some cheesy, some poignant. Some are absolutely filthy. But of all things, he says thanks. _Thanks._ What the actual karking hell.

If the lights were up she’d be able to see the mortification.

Ahsoka chuckles as she slides back up the rack, hard nipples brushing his abdomen, and settles against his side with one leg slung over his hips. She’s so wet against him, and she rocks her hips, burying her face in his neck. It must be awkward for her, with the lek and the montrals.

“You’re welcome.” Her breath stutters against his pulse point, and she grinds harder. “Ohhhh…”

“Here, let me-”

“No, it’s okay I can get myself off you just relax for a bit,” Ahsoka interrupts. Rex grumbles, something between an indignant sigh and a growl, and flips her onto her back before pulling her knee up and pressing his dick against her. He’s already getting hard again.

There’s that noise again, the high pitched vibrato that seems to sneak out without intent. Rex kisses her, a wet mess of lips and tongue. “I might be old, but I’m also genetically engineered,” he says against her lips, before reaching down and adjusting himself to just the right angle.

 _Oh okay_.

It’s been a while since he’s been with a woman like this. Probably close to a decade, what with the running and hiding and searching and then his exile on Seelos. This is different though, Ahsoka isn’t designed for a human dick, and even though he’d known on a theoretical level that they weren’t genetically compatible, he didn’t think that would extend to the physical.

Or does it? Because oh she’s so tight. There’s something gripping him that feels like it’s sucking him in until he’s whining in the back of his throat and pressing his face into her lek.

“You okay?” she asks. Her fingertips trail up his back and Rex shivers. “Sorry, I should have warned you.”

“Yeah I’m… I’m good,” he grits out. He’s really _really_ good.

Ahsoka’s probably realizing right about now that he’s never done any research on Tog reproductive parts. He rolls his hips, and barely manages to move. She grabs his hand and slides it between them. It’s an awkward angle, so he pushes back up on his free elbow and leans to the side a bit.

“There’s a spot there, kind of like a human clitoris but a bit flatter and wider.”

“So a Tog clit, then?” he asks, as he finds the spot. She shakes her head, arches her back and there’s that noise again.

“Fuck, yeah I guess.” A stream of heavy breathing, and then another round of increasingly colourful curses until that tight sucking becomes almost unbearable and he’s afraid she’s going to pinch his cock off.

Then it’s over, and he realizes one of her lekku has somehow managed to wrap itself around his wrist. He’s so hard he’s sure he could probably shoot again, and a few moments later with a squeeze of her eyelids and a final spasm, he does. Unexpected and violently.

The lek around his wrist lets go, and so does her… whatever she calls it, he hesitates to call it a vagina or a cunt or a tooka because if she has a _not a clit_ then surely referring to it in basic isn’t going to do him any favors.

Rex rolls off her as soon as he can feel his cock again. He knew she was going to be blue, she’d already been leaking some of it when he’d gone down on her earlier, when he lost all that time just in the exploration phase. He didn’t expect the blue to glow with a phosphorescent luminosity that lights up his whole crotch area.

“Wow, okay that’s… new.”

There’s a content _mmm_ in his left ear, and Ahsoka kicks around until she manages to work the sheet and the blanket high enough to reach with one of her long arms, then pulls it up and over them.

“These sheets were clean an hour ago.”

She snuggles closer, and kisses his shoulder. “Deal with it.”

Her breathing starts to even out. She’s on the brink of wakefulness, so close to tipping over into sleep, that he knows there’s only a few moments before his words fall on deaf ears or into jumbled dreams.

“I don’t know how much longer I have, but I know I want to spend it with you, if you’ll have me.” He pulls his head away a little, and turns it so he can look at her.

Ahsoka opens her eyes, and he can see the glint of blue and the shadow of one of her sardonic half smiles creeping across her lips. “We’re soldiers, Rex. Neither of us know how long we’ll be around, but no matter whether that’s three days or three decades, I know I want to spend it with you.” She hesitates, and then repeats his own words back at him. “If you’ll have me.”

It’s the most they’ve said to each other since they were standing in the hallway, avoiding hungover pilots and nosy grunts. Rex’s chest feels like it's about to explode, his heart is pounding so hard and so fast.

Maybe this is it, maybe this is how he goes out. Heart attack at thirty-two, immediately following the best sex of his life. Put it on the memorial plaque.

He settles back, returning to staring up at the ceiling, and smiles.

“Yeah. Yeah i’ll have you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos are hugs, comments are food ❤️
> 
> Here's a reward for getting to the end - Rex in his undies


End file.
